Chocolate cake is already an indulgence, but nothing compares to the cakes on this list. Some are made with gold, diamonds, and precious gemstones, whereas others are painstakingly made by top pastry chefs with some of the finest and rarest ingredients across the globe. But each one is sure to make your mouth water and your wallet ache.
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1. Debbie Wingham’s Runway Cake: $74.2 million
The most expensive cake on this list might also be the most expensive cake in the world, with a jaw-dropping price tag of £48.5 million (equivalent to $74.2 million in September 2015 when it was publicized by CNBC). It took Debbie Wingham 1,100+ hours to hand sculpt this cake, which is also the heaviest on this list, clocking in at nearly 1,000 lb.
Commissioned as a joint birthday and engagement party gift by an anonymous United Arab Emirates recipient, the cake features the birthday girl walking down a fashion runway made of Belgian chocolate, chocolate ganache, and chocolate truffle cream.
While the cake is certainly made with rich baking materials, what really makes it so expensive are the dazzling stones adorning it—we’re talking thousands of diamonds, emeralds, amethysts, and other gemstones, with the stars of the show being a 5.2-carat pink diamond, a 6.4-carat yellow diamond, 15 5-carat white diamonds, and dozens of black and white diamonds.
2. Masami Miyamoto’s Diamond Chocolate Cake: $850,0000
This diamond-studded chocolate treat was on display at the Takashimaya department store in Osaka, Japan in December 2006. Originally a publicity stunt designed to attract Christmas shoppers, the store decided to put it up for sale for ¥100 million (equal to $843,535 before tax).
The patissier designed the cake based on the idea that “chocolate and diamonds are what a woman most wants to receive.” It’s adorned with around 100 diamonds totaling 50 carats supplied by the Japanese jeweler Sa-Birth.
3. The Lindeth Howe Country House Hotel Cake: $35,000
This chocolate cake broke the Guinness World Record for most expensive dessert in December 2011 when it was sold for £22,000 ($34,700) at the Lindeth Howe Country House Hotel in Cumbria, England. Presented in the shape of a Fabergé egg, everything about the cake screams rarity and luxury.
Chef Marc Guilbert paired up with Wave Jewellery to create this masterpiece of indulgence, which features a beautiful biscuit joconde base, champagne jelly, four different types of Belgian chocolate (flavored with peach, orange, and whiskey), edible gold leaves, strawberry caviar, and handcrafted chocolate flowers—not to mention a 2.62-carat chocolate diamond in 18K rose gold placed carefully on top.
If all that wasn’t enough to justify the high price tag, the cake was also served alongside champagne and a bottle of Chateau d’Yquem dessert wine and came with a free night’s stay and evening meal at the Lindeth Howe Country House Hotel.
4. Proposal Cake: $2,558
This gold-frosted cake was commissioned by Angelito Araneta Jr. in 2009 as an ambitious business venture. He planned to sell the cake to men in Manila for ₱124,000 ($2,558) as a creative and tasty gift to use in a marriage proposal.
This chocolate cake is adorned with 15 African diamonds and carefully wrapped in 24K gold leaves. Whether any wealthy Romeos actually splashed out on this cake is unclear, but chocolate lovers will agree—it sure is a romantic gesture.
5. The Golden Phoenix Cupcake: $1,000
Widely considered the world’s most expensive cupcake, the Golden Phoenix first premiered at the opening of the Bloomsbury’s Cupcakes branch in Dubai Mall, with a price tag of Dh3,676 (roughly $1,000 at the time of sale).
Unlike the more expensive chocolate cakes in this list, the Golden Phoenix cupcake is 100% edible (and, by the sound of it, 100% delicious).
The high value of this exquisite cake all comes down to the quality of the ingredients, which include Italian Amedei Porcelana chocolate (which is made with some of the world’s rarest cocoa beans), Ugandan vanilla beans, and 23K edible gold sheets. The cake is frosted with a rich chocolate icing and dashes of edible gold dust and served alongside fresh strawberries coated in organic chocolate.
6. The Decadence D’Or: $750
Like the Golden Phoenix, the Decadence D’Or cupcake is a luxury chocolate cake you can have all to yourself. Offered at a price of $750 by Sweet Surrender, a cake shop located in The Palazzo casino and resort in Las Vegas, it’s much more than just a cupcake—it’s a work of edible art.
Johann Springfield, the French pastry chef responsible for making this chocolate treat, says that it costs so much firstly due to the rarity of the ingredients used and secondly due to the several hours of manual labor required to make each cupcake.
The pinnacle of the Decadence D’Or is the hand-blown and polished sugar fleur de lis, which is filled with 100-year-old Louis XIII de Remy Martin Cognac and sits atop a chocolate dome covering the top of the cupcake.
The dome glitters with edible flakes of real gold and is framed in a careful ring of manually cultivated Tahitian gold vanilla caviar. The cake itself is filled with a rich chocolate ganache made of Venezuelan chocolate from the rare Porcelana Criollo bean.
7. Big Win Vegas Slot Machine Cake: $975
Now we’ll take things down a notch to a cake designed for more standard consumption. Despite the high price tag, this isn’t a one-of-a-kind work of patisserie art commissioned by a cake lover who has more money than they know what to do with. Instead, it’s one of several novelty cakes sold by Rolling in Dough Bakery in Las Vegas.
The website lists the price as $975 for 12 servings—that’s $81.25 per slice. Obviously the target buyer is someone who’s won big in the casino! There are three flavors to choose from, including “decadent chocolate with milk chocolate mousse.”
The slot machine cake is 100% edible, including the poker chips, chocolate dice, and the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign. While we can’t say whether this cake is worth it, you’ll probably feel like a winner cutting into the first slice.
